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Stephen Colbert has played a messianic blowhard for so long it has become hard to separate the man from the fictional character.

The genius of Colbert was that he managed to perform the same character for 10 seasons — the longest piece of sketch comedy imaginable — viewing the world through the lens of a right-wing ignoramus and “high status idiot” on The Colbert Report.

Viewers finally got to see the real Colbert when he debuted in The Late Show seat, taking over for David Letterman Tuesday night.

“With this show I begin the search for the real Stephen Colbert. I just hope I don’t find him on Ashley Madison,” joked the comedian.

It turns out the new Stephen Colbert is, at least stylistically, pretty much like the old Colbert. The exaggerated gestures, the manic, blustery humour encased in a Brooks Brothers suit will make it hard in the early going to differentiate the new from the old.

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“I used to play a narcissistic conservative pundit,” Colbert told guest and Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush. “Now I’m just playing a narcissist.”

Colbert, who admits he looks like the “guy who will sell you insurance,” was dangerous because he was the perfect sleeper agent embedded in Middle America to create a subversive wave of self-reflection. But what happens when there is no irony in the conversation?

Colbert has said it is a relief to be himself, without putting his comedy through a “CPU” to spit out what that other Colbert would say. But as a viewer, it remains a little disconcerting. Imagine if Sacha Baron Cohen decided to play it straight after being in character as Borat for a decade.

But with Letterman and Jon Stewart off the air, Colbert arrives at an opportune time for CBS.

This is a once in a generation passing of the torch. The last person, Letterman, held the job for 22 years.

Few talk show hosts are as politically attuned, especially with a U.S. election on the horizon.

Colbert’s competition includes NBC’s Jimmy Fallon, whose interviews tend to be fawning, inoffensive and ultimately pointless. And there is ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, who can be clever, but politics are not his wheelhouse.

So you have Colbert. Besides Bush on opening night, he has U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden on Thursday. Next week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer guest. Not your usual celebrity click-bait.

The show was watched by 6.6 million viewers, delivering its largest Tuesday audience, excluding David Letterman’s final week, since July 1995.

The show began with a pretaped segment of Colbert singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in scenes taped around the U.S. Jon Stewart, who is listed as an executive producer of the show, also made a brief appearance.

Colbert then went on to make topical jokes that would not be out of place on The Colbert Report.

“I will be covering all the presidential candidates who are Donald Trump,” he quipped, before going into an extended sequence of Trump clips while eating Oreos — a skit that was disappointingly flat, as if trying to pad the jokes now that he has an hour to fill.

In his interview with Bush, Colbert was more pointed than most talk show hosts would be, asking him repeatedly how he differed from his brother.

Bush replied that the former president, “didn’t control Republican Congress spending” and use “fiscal restraint.”

Colbert also asked guest George Clooney what it was like to be the “eye candy” in his marriage to human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. And then he gave Clooney a wedding present from Tiffany inscribed with “I Don’t Know You” in reference to the fact that many talk show hosts pretend to know their guests, even if they didn’t.

There was also a skit with Clooney plugging a non-existent show because he was on as a guest with nothing to promote. While the skits were moderately funny, they may have been a little too meta for some late-night viewers.

Letterman would likely have questioned the use of CBS head honcho Les Moonves in the audience helping out with a skit. Moonves had his hand on a lever that would flip The Late Show to reruns of The Mentalist if Colbert misbehaved.

That would be way too deferential for Letterman, a man who went out of his way to at least look like he bit the hand that fed him.

While some of the skits were clunky, the humour perhaps a little forced, Colbert remains a fine choice to replace Letterman.

When we last saw him on the finale of The Colbert Report he shot Death and flew off in a sleigh with Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek to show he was “immortal.”

In his new show, Colbert is revealing his most human face. But Colbert has been playing late night Kabuki theatre for a long time. And until we get to know him a little more, he happens to look a lot like the old Colbert.

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